Speaker: Repeated Absences from House Meetings Date Back Decades

Valerie Woods

As we reported in our last edition of Five Point Breakdown, deliberate, repeated absenteeism in the House of Representatives is currently not a violation of the Standing Orders because there is a loophole in those rules that govern house attendance. The Standing Orders, as the Speaker of the House, Valerie Woods indicated to us, is archaic and needs updating to make it applicable to today’s reality. In 1967, when the Standing Orders were drafted, the house met every Friday; hence, if parliamentarians missed six successive meetings within a three-month period, they could have been dealt with. At present the house does not meet every Friday, not even every month; therefore, it’s not possible for a parliamentarian to miss six successive sessions within three months. Today, when she appeared on Open Your Eyes, Speaker Woods delved further into that topic.

Valerie Woods, Speaker of the House

“The procedures of the House of Representatives are premised on what the Standing Orders back then intended for the House – how the House should be run. Back then, House meetings should be held weekly, every Friday. If they’re held every Friday, then you can appreciate some of the other Standing Orders. Standing Order 84 is the one that you’re referring to that speaks to absences. It’s very clear: you notify the Clerk, not the Speaker, as has been said in other quarters. Everything really is about notifying the Clerk. The Clerk brings the matters to the attention of the Speaker, and then I so rule, for the most part. You’re allowed – members obviously will be absent from time to time for whatever reason – and what it allows for is for you to be absent but for no more than six consecutive times but within three months. If you’re not meeting weekly, that’s never going to happen.”

Isani Cayetano

“We’ve departed from that a long time ago.”

Valerie Woods

“And this has nothing to do with any one government’s administration. This has been going on for decades. So the way to address that is that you’re going to change – either you’re going to meet every week, which is most unlikely. It’s not within the culture, or you reduce the amount of times that you’re allowed absences, given that we meet so few times within the year, and you do away with, for example, the period of three months.”